


A Stitch in Time

by mousie3 (ErinKatz)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, team fic, with a side of sewing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-28 14:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5093714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinKatz/pseuds/mousie3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve likes sewing. It's relaxing and it reminds him of the time he left behind. He isn't so sure this new century or his new team.</p><p>Five times Steve's teammates inadvertently discover his sewing projects and one time he shares his sewing with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Stitch in Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MK_Yujji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Yujji/gifts).



> (1) This was written for MK_Yujji who requested "Five times the team accidentally caught a glimpse of Steve’s art and one time he shared it on purpose." I interpreted art as sewing because I have headcannons about all of the Avengers sewing and serious feelings about sewing as art. MK_Yujji - I really hope you enjoy this despite the artistic liberties.
> 
> (2) This could also be titled "How Steve Came to be on First Name Terms with His Teammates." I didn't intend for that to happen, but once I started writing Steve using everyone's titles by default, I realized that it seemed to fit.
> 
> (3) This includes bits and pieces from Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run. Most notably, Kate Bishop. And Lucky the dog. You don't need to have read comics to understand (and hopefully love) this story, but Hawkeye was my first comic and I would highly recommend it if you're at all interested in exploring that side of Marvel.
> 
> (4) This is only MCU compliant up the first Avengers movie. Partly because I haven't seen the second one. And partly because I really love the team-coming-together tropes that were dominating the fandom when I first got into it.

**I. Darcy, Jane, and Thor**

Steve finds himself sitting on a surprisingly comfortable folding chair outside a pair of heavy metal doors listening to a quiet series of pops and thumps originating behind them.

Maria had called him the day after he got back to his Brooklyn apartment and asked him to come to SHIELD’s New York headquarters to look at some of the recovered Chitauri weapons. He’s here a bit early, so he pulls his uniform jacket and a small sewing kit out of the duffel bag he brought with him. There’s still an inch long tear in the seam between the sleeve and the shoulder on one side.

He threads a tapestry needle with Kevlar thread and pinches the tear between his fingers. One benefit of super-strength? Being able to stitch through the reinforced fabric of his new suit by hand. The hole is halfway closed with neat, elephant ear stitches when a young woman with boxy black glasses opens the door far enough to poke her head out.

“Captain Rogers?” she asks blandly.

“That’s me,” he replies.

“Dr. Foster is ready for you,” she says. Then she takes in the needle and thread he is carefully arranging as he folds his jacket and puts it back in his bag. “Are you repairing your own uniform?” she asks, sounding excited now.

He braces himself for her laughter and whatever explanation she is going to offer for why he shouldn’t be sewing. During the war, all of the soldiers repaired their own uniforms, but they aren’t at war now. He’s doing work, menial labor even, that he doesn’t have to, simply because he finds it relaxing, because it reminds him of the time he still thinks of as home, and because it doesn’t feel right to let someone else do it. Most people find the choice to do unnecessary menial labor rather strange.

But the young woman in front of him isn’t laughing; her smile is bright, but kind. “I write for Feministe. It’s a feminist blog and I’m working on an article about the clothing industry, and maybe about sewing more generally, as part of the history and the present of women who belong to a number of other marginalized groups. And - I’m sorry, I don’t even know you and you’re here to see Jane, but you were just sitting here sewing when it’s something I’ve been reading a lot about and thinking a lot about lately. So maybe sometime, if you’re not too put off by this introduction, we could talk about it sometime.”

Steve thinks that he caught no more than fifty percent of what she said, but he agrees with the parts he did catch and he admires her enthusiasm. “I’d like that,” he pauses, realizing that he doesn’t know her name.

“Awesome!” she says, just as another woman steps into the doorway.

“Darcy,” the second woman says, sounding both fond and exasperated.

“Sorry, boss,” Darcy replies. “Captain Rogers and I were just talking about sewing. Because he was repairing his uniform while he was waiting. Not just because I talk to everyone about my writing.” She turns to Steve and continues, “Captain Rogers, this is Dr. Foster. She’s in charge of the Chitauri weapons investigation.”

Steve extends his hand to Dr. Foster and then to Darcy. “It’s nice to meet both of you. “Please, call me Steve,” he says.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Steve. Please call me Jane,” Dr. Foster says. “Thor mentioned once, that on Asgard, warriors have rituals for repairing their armor. It’s a communal activity there. You should talk to him about it whenever he gets back.”

He remembers then, how fondly Thor had spoken of the brilliant scientist he had met on his previous visit to Earth, with whom he had apparently shared some part of his life while he was millions of miles from home. And who is now sharing it with Steve. He feels himself smiling at the idea of repairing armor as an activity shared among warriors or soldiers or teammates.

“I think I will,” he says.

 

He and Thor end up talking about it nearly a year later. They’ve successfully taken down a small-time villain and they’re waiting or the okay to fly back to headquarters. There’s nothing for Steve to do in the way of clean-up, so he tugs off his jacket and pulls a needle and thread out of the pocket. That’s when he spots Thor with his armor off, seemingly preparing to hammer a dent out of his chest plate. Thor sees him too and after that, they tend to do uniform repairs together.

 

**II. Tony and Pepper**

When Steve moved out of the SHIELD barracks and rented a walk-up in Brooklyn, Maria had let him take a set of SHIELD issue bedding and towels with him. He was grateful for that small generosity after he spent several overwhelming hours traipsing through the IKEA out at Red Hook trying to choose a table and chairs and a bed frame from a sea of seemingly identical furniture. 

He has since been introduced to the ease of online shopping, but he thinks that if he’s going to replace the perfectly serviceable, but completely grey SHIELD comforter, he should replace it with something he really likes. So instead of ordering a comforter, he visits the fabric store a few blocks over and buys several yards of three different subtle, dark blue prints. 

When he gets them home, he lays them out next to his mother’s sewing machine that SHIELD had inexplicably saved. He sketches a quick pattern on a napkin, then uses a ruler and marker to draw the rectangles and triangles he needs on the fabric. He regrets not buying a new pair of scissors when his pair struggles to cut the fabric, but he makes it work by using one hand and an elbow to pull the fabric taut as he slides the scissors through it. He’s so focused on slicing the quilt pieces that he barely registers the knock at the door.

He answers the door with the scissors in one hand and scraps of fabric stuck to his shirt. The surprised look that crosses Tony Stark’s face is gratifying, given how surprised Steve is to see the man at his apartment.

“Crafting, Cap?” Stark asks, with a sharply raised eyebrow.

“Quilting, actually,” he replies, stepping back into the apartment and refusing to give Stark the satisfaction of acting like his opinion matters.

Stark follows him into the kitchen, openly gawking at the bare walls, minimal furniture, and the fabric and sewing machine covering the kitchen table.

“Water?” Steve asks, already pulling two glasses out of the cupboard.

“Sure, yes, absolutely,” Stark says absently, then points at the sewing machine and asks, “Was this your mother’s?”

“Yes,” Steve says, failing to keep the irritation out of his voice as he hands Stark a nearly full glass.

“Hey, no, don’t take it like that. This is cool, which I totally didn’t expect from you at all, but it has occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t completely fair to you the last time we met. But quilting is great, not that I know anything about it, beyond admiring art. And Pepper’s mom quilted – we have some of her quilts in the tower, which is actually what I’m here to talk about. Not the quilts, the tower.”

When Stark finally stops talking, Steve tries not to laugh. He’s pretty sure this is the closest thing to an apology he is ever going to get. So he smiles and says, “Alright, I won’t invite you to my next quilting bee, seeing as you’re not cool enough. And also, I’m sorry too.”

“Okay, I like the sass. I wholeheartedly approve of the sass, but we’re done with the heartfelt apologies now, right?” Stark asks.

That sounds fine to Steve. “I thought you were going to tell me about a tower,” he says.

“Right, my tower!” Stark exclaims. “Well, more like Pep’s tower and soon to be all of our tower. You remember the tower.”

Steve nods and doesn’t point out that the site of a battle with a horned and caped villain is pretty hard to forget.

“So we’re mostly done with renovations, but Pep and I decided to make a few changes instead of just putting things back the way they were,” he says. “Most importantly for you, we added living spaces for the Avengers. Nothing fancy, just a few rooms of your own if you ever want to stay over or we need to get the gang together again.”

Steve opens his mouth to reply, but Stark holds up a hand and keeps talking. “You don’t have to move in, although you can if you want to, but you have to admit it’s a good idea to be able to get the team together. Of course it’s a good idea – I thought of it.” He reaches into his pocket and produces something that looks like a credit card. “No actual keys in the tower. Sorry about not being more old-fashioned, Cap. But the keycard will get you into your suite. Your unmistakable Boy Scout good looks will get you in the front door.”

Steve takes the keycard and looks at it for a long moment. Thanks, Stark. I’m not moving, but it is a good idea to have a place for all of us. I’ll stop by and see it sometime,” he says. “And my name is Steve – no need to use titles.”

“Maybe, Steve, I just like Cap,” Stark replies. “And it’s Tony, not Stark.”

 

Steve drops by the tower a week later, after a long run through Central Park. His looks do indeed get him past the lobby where a disembodied voice summons him to an elevator, identifies itself as JARVIS, apologizes for the absence of Sir and Ms. Potts, and directs him to the third door on the ninety-seventh floor. He thanks JARVIS and makes a mental note to ask Tony about computerized butlers before sliding his card into the slot on the door.

Inside is a small suite – living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom – furnished and stocked plainly but tastefully. There isn’t much there beyond the essentials, except for a long table on one side of the living room. At one end of the table, sits a huge, sleek sewing machine. At the other end, there’s a caddy full of supplies. Steve can see scissors and thread and several different shapes of rulers. There’s a cardboard box with a note taped to it in the middle of the table. He gently removes the note from the box.

_Dear Steve,_  
_Tony mentioned that you liked to quilt, so we picked out the latest machine in my mother’s favorite line. (She quilted too.) Think of it as a thank you present from Stark Industries for saving our NYC HQ. This box contains my mother’s quilt square patterns – she would want them to go to someone who will actually use them. Hope to see you soon._  
_\- Pepper Potts_

Steve opens the box and gently leafs through a stack of thick, creamy papers covered in neat drawings and carefully written instructions. Some of the patterns are variations on classic squares and others look completely original. By the time he leaves the tower, he’s mentally choosing the squares he wants to include in a quilt for Pepper and Tony.

 

**III. Maria and Peggy**

Steve had never been to the garment district when he lived in New York the first time, a lifetime ago. He’s here now, though. The garment factories may be largely gone – moved overseas while the buildings that housed them are repurposed as office spaces – but the fabric stores feel like a throwback to an earlier time. They line both sides of some streets and are filled floor-to-ceiling with bolts of fabric arranged in narrow aisles. Most of them seem to be family businesses, with friendly, talkative staffs that clearly span several generations.

B&J Fabrics is on the second floor of a building with high, moulded ceilings. It’s tidier than many of the other shops and its aisles are wider, but it’s only slightly less haphazard in its organization. He wanders through rows of chiffons and tulles and brocades until he finds the fleeces. They take up nearly half an aisle, arranged roughly in a rainbow. He gravitates towards the blue section of the spectrum and begins feeling the samples pinned to the end of each bolt.

The amount of selection that had overwhelmed him on that first trip to IKEA, and that seems to be a hallmark of this century, still amazes him. It’s a good sort of amazement now. In this plethora of choices, he can find exactly what he wants, something that matches his memory, but feels much nicer. He settles on a thin, navy fleece that feels butter soft and warm, but not too warm. 

He’s carrying the bolt to the counter to have it cut when he hears a familiar voice. Agent Maria Hill is standing in front of the counter, talking to the attendant on the other side.

“Maria, hi,” he says as he comes up behind her. “I didn’t know you sewed.”

“I could say the same thing,” she replies. “What are you making?”

“Peggy’s birthday present,” he says. “Oh, you know who Agent Carter…”

“Steve, I know Peggy Carter,” she says, her gentle smile suggesting that she also knows Peggy hasn’t been doing so well lately.

“I found a pattern for the jacket she used to wear, back when we served together. I thought she might like a cozier version,” he says, holding the fleece out for Maria to feel, suddenly nervous that the idea sounds foolish or self-centered.

“This is much better than military uniform fabric. She’s going to love it,” she says.

She turns back to the young woman behind the counter, who hands her a large plastic bag filled with scraps of nearly shear white fabric. “Thank you, Nadia,” she says. She must see the moment the girl’s eyes widen as she looks over at Steve, because she adds, “And this is Steve Rogers who likes to sew when he’s not being heroic. He’ll probably sign a piece of the Captain America fabric for you if you ask.”

“Who says I can’t simultaneously sew and be heroic, ma’am?” he asks Maria just to watch her cringe at the honorific, before turning to Nadia. “I’d like three yards of this fabric and some advice about thread, please, and I would be happy to sign whatever fabric you want.”

“Of course, sir,” she says, eyes still wide. 

“Steve is fine,” he tells her and she smiles.

Maria rests a hand on his shoulder. “I have to go,” she says. “I’ll see you around. Good luck with the jacket.”

“Goodbye, Maria,” he says. She’s out of the shop before he realizes that he never asked what she was sewing.

 

He makes the jacket with the thread, buttons, and trim that Nadia helped him choose. He sends her a picture when he finishes. Her response contains more exclamation marks than he has ever seen in a single email and concludes with a request for him to share the pattern for the jacket. He emails her back and sets a date to stop by the store so he can give it to her.

Maria goes with him when he gives the jacket to Peggy. They catch a train to DC and walk from the station to the nursing home. Peggy does love the jacket and the basket of tangerines and chocolate topped with a small stuffed rabbit that Maria gives her. Steve blinks back a tear or two when she tries the jacket on, suddenly transported seventy years back in time. But she’s smiling and hugging him and it’s a good day.

 

**IV. Natasha, Clint, and Kate**

Steve has gotten used to seeing Agent Romanov around SHIELD headquarters, but they don’t really talk. So he’s surprised when she falls into step beside him one day as he’s leaving Director Nick Fury’s office. 

“You live in Brooklyn, right?” she asks. 

He nods. “Midwood, specifically.” 

“Good. I need a favor,” she says. “Well, Clint needs a favor and I need Clint to be okay.” 

“Of course,” he says, perhaps a little too quickly. The last time he had seen Agent Barton was five months ago, on the day Thor had taken Loki back to Asgard. They had scattered after that, leaving SHIELD and Stark Industries to handle the fallout. At the time, and even after he had gotten back from his unplanned road trip, he hadn’t checked up on the rest of the team. Tony had come to him, but he wished now that he had at least asked Maria and Nick how the others were doing, especially Agent Barton. 

Agent Romanov must see something of that worry on his face because she says, “Clint’s alright. Good actually. Except for managing to upset the Russian mafia.” As they follow the maze of hallways towards the exit, she weaves a tale involving an apartment building, a dog named Lucky, an archery protégé, and a group of bad guys who like tracksuits. 

“You have an interesting definition of the word alright,” he says, smiling, when she finishes. “What does Agent Barton need my help with?” 

“First, he’s Clint and I’m Natasha. This is outside of SHIELD, so drop the Agents,” she says. 

He nods, wondering at a world where he belongs to a team with people whose personal lives involve mafias. “Call me Steve, then,” he says. 

“Alright, Steve,” she replies. “We think the mafia has a drop point in Kolbert Park.” 

“That’s three blocks from my apartment!” he exclaims. 

Natasha grins. “It seems that the mere presence of Captain America is not enough to stop drug trafficking.” 

“I should stop them,” he says. “You want me to stop them, right?’ 

“No. That would tip the rest of the operation off,” she says. “We just want you to keep an eye on the park and make sure they’re really there.” 

Keeping an eye on a park ends up involving a lot of sitting around on park benches. By the end of the first hour, he realizes that he looks suspicious. So he goes home and tries to come up with innocuous seeming things to do while sitting on a park bench. 

Sewing isn’t really a portable activity, reading requires too much attention, and pretending to read is just depressing. He is about to call Natasha and ask for suggestions when he thinks of knitting. He has never knit before, but he likes sewing and he doesn’t think it should be that hard. 

When he stops by his neighborhood fabric store, the saleslady tries to convince him to look at some simple patterns or even sign up for a class. He gives her his most winning smile and says he’d rather play around with it on his own first. She points him towards a rack of cheap needles and yarn with a slight smile and suggests that scarves are great for learning to knit. She shows him how to cast on before he leaves. 

And so he ends up sitting on a bench in Kolbert Park with an ever-growing scarf and a slowly shrinking ball of yarn for the next three evenings. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Then on the fourth evening, he sees a pair of men each carrying a large box sit down in the corner of the park. He takes a picture of them as subtly as he can, trying to hold his phone so that anyone who sees him will think he’s taking a selfie. It must not alarm the men with the boxes because they sit in the corner for another few minutes until a third man arrives with a briefcase. Then they trade the boxes for the briefcase and leave separately. 

He snaps a picture of the third man and texts both pictures to the number that Natasha gave him for Clint. 

Clint replies, “That’s our guy. We’ll be right over.” 

Figuring that it’s best to stick to routine, he stays on the bench and goes back to knitting. He’s still working on the scarf when a young woman sits down next to him twenty minutes later. He desperately thinks that he should have come up with some sort of cover story. 

“You know,” the woman says conversationally, “this neighborhood isn’t hipster enough by half for knitting in a park to be a good cover.” 

He looks up at her properly and sees a man approaching the bench behind her. “Clint,” he calls. “Good to see you.” 

Clint sits down on the other side of the woman. “Good to see you too,” he says. “Let me introduce Kate Bishop, who is an excellent archer, but too critical by half.” 

“I suppose I can forgive your non-existent undercover skills in light of your excellent taste in yarn colors,” Kate says, holding out a hand to shake his. 

He takes her hand, wondering whether she’s being sarcastic about the brilliant lavender hue of the yarn. “Purple, huh?” he asks. 

“It’s the color of Hawkeyes,” she replies. Clint’s grinning like a loon. Steve finally connects her with the brilliant protégé Natasha had mentioned. 

“Come on. My apartment isn’t far from here,” Steve says, standing and gathering his knitting supplies. “We can talk there and you can continue to admire my color choices.” 

He gives both Hawkeyes garish purple hats for Christmas. Clint wars his. Kate uses hers as a Christmas tree decoration. They give him boxy, prescription-less glasses and fingerless gloves for “the next time he wants to go undercover as a hipster.” He ends up using the glasses. 

 

**V. Bruce**

After that, the team comes together a little more. For all that Tony didn’t personalize the individual suites he gave them, (“I didn’t actually know you guys then and Pepper said that looking up your preferred décor would be invasive.”) he clearly put a lot of thought into the team spaces he made in the tower. 

The new gym includes two separate hand-to-hand obstacle courses – one geared towards strength and the other geared towards stealth. There’s an archery range one floor down. The communal kitchen is always well-stocked; there’s even a cupboard full of Poptarts even though Thor hasn’t yet come back from Asgard. The lounge area is full of comfy seating and a huge television and Steve is fairly certain that JARVIS has access to everything that has ever been captured on film. The entire communal area has been reinforced to withstand the Hulk, even though Dr. Banner is still in Argentina. 

He loves movie nights, when all of the people he has grown close to in this time come together and bicker over what film to watch before settling in with bowls of popcorn and some movie he has never seen before. 

His favorite nights though, are sewing nights. He finally figured out what Maria was doing with the gauzy white fabric when she showed up at the tower for a meeting with Pepper and pulled out a paper bag full of tiny pieces of fabric, needles, and thread. 

“I usually use a machine,” she told Steve, who was sitting with her at the kitchen table, “but these guys are small enough to do by hand when I’m not at home.” 

“What are they?” he asked. 

“Handkerchief rabbits,” she said, and explained haw she made them for the nursing home residents in the facility across the street from her apartment. 

She starts stopping by after that with supplies for a pair for rabbits. She and Steve commandeer the kitchen table, stitch the plush critters together, and swap stories, usually from the various wars in which they had served. 

That’s what they’re doing when Dr. Banner comes back. 

Tony leads him through the common areas, talking a mile a minute and seemingly basking in his presence more than worrying about what information he is actually conveying. Steve remembers the way they had driven off together with a surprising level of chumminess and thinks it’s good for them to be back together. Maria smiles in a way that she rarely does when Tony is involved, that suggests she thinks the same thing. 

And then Tony is ushering Dr. Banner into the kitchen and stopping short when he sees Steve and Maria. 

“Aw, here’s the sewing club. Sewing club, you remember Bruce, part-time rage monster, fulltime genius,” he says. 

Steve rolls his eyes as he stands up and extends his hand. He catches the exact same expression mirrored on Dr. Banner’s face. 

“Welcome back. It’s good to see you,” Steve says and Dr. Banner shakes his hand and then Maria’s. 

“You too. It’s good to be back,” he replies. “What are you sewing?” 

“Handkerchief rabbits,” Maria says. “We take them to the nursing home by my apartment. They’re surprisingly popular.” 

“Fun to make, too,” Steve adds. 

Dr. Banner looks thoughtful. “Could I join you sometime? This looks relaxing and I’ve always wanted to learn to sew. Besides, I can see why people like these little guys,” he says, picking up the half stuffed rabbit that Maria has almost finished. 

“Of course,” Steve says as Maria nods. 

Tony’s you’re-stealing-my-science-bro scowl is half-hearted at best and he says, “You should make one for Dummy.” 

And so Dr. Banner, who quickly becomes Bruce, becomes a welcome addition to sewing night. Despite having never sewn before, he picks it up quickly and Steve discovers that he enjoys teaching. Bruce’s first three rabbits look more like a ghost, an amoeba, and an apple, respectively. Dummy, Butterfingers, and You love them. Tony pretends that he doesn’t. 

Bruce doesn’t have war stories – the only war that he was in is something he never discusses – but he has endless stories of his time overseas. Steve finds his hands stilling when Bruce talks, his entire focus narrowing down to the gentle voice and the small gestures that somehow never disturb his sewing but set his salt and pepper curls bouncing. He catches himself thinking that he would like to run his hands through those curls. 

He’s not sure what he want to do about that and he’s even less certain about what Bruce might want to do about it, but he doesn’t have to do anything right now. He can enjoy this family he never thought he would find in this century – training with them, sharing meals with them, watching movies with them, and even sewing with them. 

 

**+1. Happy Halloween**

The Halloween party is Clint’s idea and it will be held in the rec center near his building for the families in his neighborhood. 

The costumes are Natasha’s idea. “We should dress up as real-life superheroes,” she says. 

“You mean as ourselves?” Tony asks. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but parents generally prefer not to have repuslors or hulks in confined spaces with their children.” 

“No – not as ourselves. Come on, I didn’t even grow up here and I know that’s not how this holiday works,” she replies. “Superheroes who they can aspire to be.” There is something sad and fierce in her tone, a conviction that no one should aspire to be what she and her teammates are, but she smiles and continues, “You know, inventors, writers, activists …” 

“Doctors,” Steve adds. 

“Artists,” says Bruce. 

“I like it,” Clint declares. “The kids will love it.” 

They enlist Darcy’s help in choosing ‘real-life superheroes’ and she dives headfirst into the research on the condition that she and Jane get invitations to the party. The team extends the invitations to Jane’s entire staff with the request that they help out with spooky science demos. 

Pepper gets involved when Tony commandeers an entire bank of Stark Industry’s 3-D printers to test out everyone’s ideas for props and decorations one afternoon. 

“For the record, I still need you to fill out the equipment requisition paperwork whenever you take over an entire wing of my company’s R&D department,” she says. “That said, this is a wonderful idea. I’d love to come.” 

“Tony already said you were his plus one, not that we’re limiting the guest list to plus ones,” Darcy says, prompting Pepper to roll her eyes. “I’ve already got you penciled in as Bessica Raiche,” she continues, and Pepper brightens at the thought of being a pioneering aviator and gynecologist. 

Steve and Bruce head up the costume making efforts. Most of the costumes don’t require sewing, just the acquisition of lab coats and dress clothes and strangely specific shoes. Steve takes charge of keeping track of these thing in a spreadsheet when it becomes apparent that on one else is going to. 

Clint gives him the last piece of his own costume to check off in the spreadsheet – a long overcoat for his J. R. R. Tolkien costume. 

Some of the costumes require a bit of sewing. Kate decides that she wants to go as Empress Gensho, the ruler of seventh century Japan, and they enlist Maria’s help in making a junihtoe. They stop at four layers, rather than the traditional twelve after Kate gives up on training Lucky to carry the trailing robes. She and Darcy decide that their time is better spent learning about Nihon Shoki, the historical text whose creation the empress oversaw, and handcrafting a replica. 

And then there’s Clint’s costume, taken from an early tour of Cirque du Soleil. Like most of the ensembles, it had been Darcy’s idea and she had presented it with a twofold explanation: “Cirque du Soleil is one of the most famous circuses that doesn’t use animals and I know you guys don’t want to encourage kids to dress up in costumes and punch bad guys, but the athletic kids should see something they can do with their talents. And if it involves dressing up in a costume, well, that’s just fun.” 

The costume is a tiger bodysuit, a highly stylized on that Steve thinks really might be the most artistic of their costumes. Clint loves it. 

And Natasha can’t find a thrift store dress neon enough for the Pussy Riot, the group of female activists who have been rocking Russia’s political scene with their musical demonstrations. They make one out of a bright, purple knit. 

Natasha is standing on a chair as Steve arranges the fabric over her and Bruce pins it in place. 

“If you had told me a year ago that the Hulk would end up being my tailor…” she trails off, laughing. 

Bruce smiles at her through the pins clamped between his teeth and something swells in Steve’s chest. They both look happy and comfortable and they’re actually joking about the Hulk. 

He reaches over and ruffles Bruce’s hair, saying, “Let’s forget about being heroes, be tailors instead.” Bruce leans into his hand as he turns to Natasha and asks, “Could we pull it off?” 

“Asides from being sickeningly adorable together, you two would be great,” she says. “We might miss you a bit, though.” 

The feeling of being home settles over him then, warm and happy and finally content.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are love! [You can also visit me on tumblr!](http://erinkatz.tumblr.com)


End file.
